“I’m so sorry,” Lola said, hustling into the dining room. Marlene had Chip by the hand and was dragging him along right behind her. “I forgot. I thought it was tomorrow…”

As soon as they came into the room, Eric shifted his attention away smoothly, but she could feel that she was still in his focus.

The kitchen door swung open and Scarlett’s parents emerged with a lasagna that had a foul-smelling gray cloud hovering over it. If they were startled that yet another visitor had joined them, they didn’t show it, possibly because they were concerned with the thing they had just dragged from the hellish depths of their temperamental industrial oven.

More introductions were made. Two more chairs were pulled up to the table. A pitcher of instant iced tea was passed, as was the droopy salad and a still partially frozen loaf of garlic bread. The lasagna hissed when it was touched by the metal spoon. Everyone ate in silence for a few moments, except for Mrs. Amberson, who was fine with a glass of water and a little of the bread. She graciously explained away her small appetite by saying that her stomach was still in a different time zone.

“What do you do, Chip?” she asked. “Are you a student?”

“I just graduated,” he answered, cautiously picking at his food.

“High school?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I went to Durban.”

“Where is Durban, again?” Spencer asked, all innocence. “Is it on Ninety-eighth Street?”

“No,” Chip said. “Seventy-third.”

“You sure? I could have sworn it was on Ninety-eighth. Something’s on Ninety-eighth. What could I be thinking of?”

Spencer flinched suddenly. Scarlett didn’t see her do it, but Lola must have gotten to him somehow. She had to shove some of the lasagna into her mouth to keep from laughing, and almost screamed from the scorching pain. She accidentally elbowed Mrs. Amberson in a mad grab for her iced tea.

“And what about you three?” Mrs. Amberson asked, jostled back into the conversation.

“Lola, Spencer, and Scarlett got into specialized high schools,” Scarlett’s mother chimed in proudly, “Spencer went to the High School of Performing Arts, Lola just graduated from Beacon, and Scarlett goes to Frances Perkins.”

“That’s one thing that seems so weird about New York,” Eric said. “There are so many kinds of high schools. In my town, there was just the one high school. That was it. One football team. One prom. Here, it seems like everyone does something special.”

He looked at Scarlett again when he said special. She suddenly realized she was clutching the edge of the table with both hands, like a bar on a roller coaster ride. She quickly released her grip, praying that he hadn’t noticed. Maybe he had, and he hadn’t meant the good kind of special. Maybe he meant the kind of special associated with people who are only allowed to use plastic safety scissors.

“You in a show or something, Spence?” Chip asked. He often tried to bond with Spencer, which was about as wise as a chicken trying to bond with a hungry alligator. But before Spencer could open his mouth, Eric answered.